Oil industry won't defend BP, but Fox News will

Just how far out into the wilderness of public and private opinion has the Fox News team (not to mention Rush Limbaugh, et al.) ventured in order to defend BP from attempts by the government to hold the company responsible for destroying the Gulf of Mexico? So far that not even key oil industry players will mouth the Fox News platitudes.

Anadarko Petroleum Corp., the Texas oil company that owns 25 percent of the damaged well pouring crude into the Gulf of Mexico, said BP Plc, the project's operator, should pay the costs from the spill because it acted recklessly and unsafely at the drilling site.

...

BP didn't monitor or react to warning signs as the Macondo well was drilled, Chief Executive Officer Jim Hackett said yesterday in a statement. BP is responsible for damages under such conditions, Anadarko said.

"BP's behavior and actions likely represent gross negligence or willful misconduct and thus affect the obligations of the parties under the operating agreement," Hackett said in the statement.

on Friday, Anadarko Chairman and Chief Executive Jim Hackett released a statement slamming BP for operating "unsafely" and missing "several critical warning signs" during the drilling. "The mounting evidence clearly demonstrates that this tragedy was preventable and the direct result of BP's reckless decisions and actions," he said.

That's what Fox News is defending.

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EricBoehlert
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A Senior Fellow for Media Matters, Boehlert is the author of Bloggers On the Bus: How The Internet Changes Politics and the Press, and Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush. Previously, he wrote on staff for Salon and Rolling Stone.

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